Management Fads and How to Avoid Them
When people describe an undertaking as a management fad, they’re not exactly saying something positive about it.
In fact, their tone of voice usually suggests they view it as yet another hare-brained management scheme to fix organizational woes with a heap of new processes, procedures, and visits by high-priced consultants spouting TLAs (three-letter acronyms!).
Consider, for example, total quality movement, business process reengineering, and core competency. Others include matrix management and management by objectives. And what about balanced scorecard, Six Sigma, economic value added, and knowledge management, which, like many of the others, generated a lot of buzz in academic and business circles and spawned conferences galore?
Even best practices make some lists, which is amusing given that some management fads fail at least partly because they are sold as one-size-fits-all best practices.
Looked at in retrospect, many fads follow a predictable lifecycle. A bestselling book often starts the process by popularizing the concept and offering the promise of significantly improved organizational effectiveness. Then management consultants bring the new approach to their client base. Managers embrace and champion the concept, often with a lot of hoopla. This is a stage of rapid acceptance in which the fad grows in popularity; in fact, organizations not considering the latest new practice sometimes gain a reputation as slow and stodgy.
The organization goes through the sometimes painful experience of adopting the new way, and some organizations do indeed succeed. But sustaining the new way takes time, training, effort, money, commitment, and high-level support, and several of these are often lacking. In time, interest diminishes, enthusiasm fades, and cynicism about genuine and enduring improvements builds. By then, even if new fads haven’t emerged to take the place of the old one, everyone’s attention has turned elsewhere.
It may be impossible to recognize which new ideas are fads in the making. But many efforts ultimately seen as management fads achieved popularity because of superb marketing, so evidence of that marketing may be a sign to think twice. In addition, fads are frequently characterized by new jargon to describing existing business processes, new or revised job titles for those who implement the effort, and a certification process performed by an external agency, sometimes for a hefty fee. So be on the lookout for these.
Still, management fads aren’t totally bad if they provoke thought and discussion about crucial issues. Some of the resulting ideas can lead to improvements by encouraging the organization to evaluate and examine existing approaches. These efforts can, at least in the earlier stages, energize employees and create excitement about improved ways of doing things. And with MBO, TQM, BPR, EVA, and all the others, at least the alphabet gets a good workout!
